How To Choose A Corporate Event Planner For A Corporate Event?
How To Choose A Corporate Event Planner For A Corporate Event?
Blog Article
It is possible to organize a successful corporate event on your own, but it is difficult. After all, you need to think through literally everything: from the program to the transfer and photography. Therefore, it would be more rational to seek help from those who have more experience and knowledge in this matter - that is, a corporate event planner.
However, the work of a contractor in itself does not guarantee the effectiveness of a corporate event! In order for a joint vacation of colleagues to be interesting for the participants and effective for business, you need to choose such a company thoughtfully and carefully.
Where To Start?
Formulate the task and understand what kind of event you would like to organize, for how many people, whether you have budget restrictions, whether there are clear KPIs, in which city the event will take place. Decide on the main task, this will help you in your search and facilitate further communication.
How And Where To Look For An Event Agency?
It is best to start with recommendations: ask friends and colleagues who have previously organized events. Get recommendations in professional groups or communities. This is the easiest way. If there are no recommendations, then start searching online.
When choosing a corporate event planner, pay attention to cases, to the format of events in which the agency specializes. For example, if you need to organize a festival for 1000 people, and you are looking at an agency that specializes in organizing weddings, most likely the team may not cope, since this is not their format of events. Or imagine that the task is to organize a corporate event, and you like the agency that specializes in organizing private, chamber events for up to 100 people - it is better not to risk it.
What to look for when choosing a corporate event planner?
Pay attention to the aesthetics, visual elements and packaging of cases on the website, read social networks. Be sure to look at the format of the events - how unique are the concepts - are they all similar or do the agency's events use innovative technologies, artificial intelligence, animation elements?
Take a close look at the agency's management and customer service - to what extent do they listen to you and hear your wishes. Ask about the mission of the value - this is very important, if the main value of the agency is a high level of service, beauty, professionalism - most likely the organization process will go well, if the agency has no values or they do not resonate with yours - it is better to look for the agency that you like.
In addition, with a more in-depth approach, your event will become very interesting, solve your problems and surprise the guests of the event.
How to build communication?
First, get to know the agency. Tell them about your wishes, see what they can immediately "throw" at you or what questions they will ask. How they will behave. And if there is a "match", then give them the technical specifications for developing the concept. After defending the concept, take a break to think about what you have proposed. And when you have decided on the proposed concept, you can request a detailed estimate.
Why this particular path? Because it speeds up the process of interaction and work on the event. If you ask the event planner for concepts with detailed calculations right away, they will most likely take a long time, because if these are not template solutions, the calculation will be made practically from scratch. And this way, you will note what does not suit you conceptually, at the first stage and delve into work only on what you need.
How to work with an estimate?
As funny as the title of this section may sound, it is extremely important. The estimate always has a backbone that determines the implementation of the concept. Ask your agency to highlight these items. All other items will be an addition, and if there is a need to cut the budget, you can work with them without harming your event.
What do you need to know when meeting with an event planner?
The evaluation of an event planner should be comprehensive. To do this, it is necessary to find answers to many questions. But in fact, only the followings are key:
1. How long has the company been in business?
This is the first thing you need to find out. After all, an agency that entered the market only a year ago can hardly compare in quality with a competitor who has been working in this area for 10 years. They do not have the necessary practical skills and experience.
But, to be fair, there is one nuance here. The agency itself may have recently opened, but the assembled team may already have sufficient experience accumulated in other companies. Such moments are easy to clarify right away.
2. What events did the contractor organize?
Experience is different. Some have been holding typical corporate events with a banquet and a host for 30-40 people for 15-20 years, while others organize a dozen programs of different types in a year: intellectual team building, corporate sports, New Year's celebration, theme party, and much more.
Therefore, it is necessary to find out what exactly the event planner does, what events it holds, what types of programs it highlights, how extensive the portfolio as such is, etc.
3. Who is on the agency staff?
The specifics of the event business are such a couple of people, and the rest of the employees are hired for a specific project. Of course, such a company usually tries to work with the same proven performers, but this still cannot be compared with a full-fledged, formed team, which includes diverse specialists, such as: scriptwriters, logisticians, directors, etc. Usually such a team is a serious guarantee of the coherence of the event preparation.
4. What Subcontractors Does The Company Work With?
No matter how many employees an event agency has, no company can do without outside help in many situations. Some programs will require animators, others musicians, others cooks and waiters, others bus drivers, and others drone operators.
Therefore, here you need to figure out whether the contractor has established connections with subcontractors - and whether they are able to efficiently coordinate their work at the event.
5. How Does A Company Prepare A Program Script?
There are two options in this case: take a ready-made plan or create one from scratch. Both approaches have their advantages. A template script will reduce the time it takes to organize an event, because it only needs to be slightly adapted to your company. And the price of the solution is usually very attractive. And an original script will cost significantly more, plus you need to take care of it in advance. But this is more than compensated by the opportunity to take into account all your wishes.
6. What Is The Workload Of The Event Agency?
A large number of corporate events in development indicates a high demand for the company's services. Which in turn hints at the quality of its work - this is a plus. However, this is also a minus. If the contractor's full-time employees are busy, then it is necessary to plan the organization of the holiday in your company as early as possible.
Therefore, clarify what timeframes the agency sets for preparation - and sometimes it is better to look for another contractor than to fail to meet the time frame or lose the quality of the project due to a lack of attention to it from the performer.
7. Is The Performer Ready For Off-site Programs?
Corporate events held somewhere outside the city, in nature, or even in another country are a reason for a separate conversation, so many details need to consider when organizing them. Therefore, the readiness of an event agency to work on the road is an indicator of its serious, comprehensive approach.
The wider the “geography” of the events held by the contractor, the better. Even if you are not going to send employees to another country on vacation, such an option is an important marker for evaluating the company.
8. How Is Work With The Customer Organized?
Literally everything matters in this matter. How is the contract for the agency's services concluded and what rights and obligations of the customer and the contractor are spelled out in it?
Is it expected that a personal manager will be assigned to the project to resolve any issues that arise? Is it possible to make amendments at certain points during the preparation of the corporate event? Will the contractor's specialists be present at the event itself? You should clarify such details.
9. What Impression Does The Service Make?
As in the case of choosing a host for a corporate event, always take a closer look at how the corporate event planner works at the basic level of interaction. Polite staff, punctuality during meetings and prompt response to your requests, quality of presentation preparation and openness - all this allows you to form a fairly correct picture of the contractor's principles. If something does not suit you already at the first contact, most likely, this will remain later.
10. How Much Do Agency Services Cost?
The recommendation is simple: extremes in the price issue should be a warning sign. Miracles do not happen, excessively affordable prices are a reason to think about what your contractors are going to save on when organizing a corporate event. But even the highest cost does not guarantee quality.
Therefore, it is better to focus on the rule: a serious, successful event agency is unlikely to dump, but it also does not "raise the bar" - after all, it carefully organizes work both within the company and with subcontractors.
Summing Up
As you can see, the contractor evaluation plan for corporate programs is not that complicated. If you build communication with the event planners correctly, the choice will be quite simple. Although it can be made even simpler! To do this, just contact Serene Event Center.
As a leading corporate event planner, we have everything you need to organize a corporate event of any complexity and anywhere in in Frisco, Allen, and Plano TX - see for yourself right now! Report this page